The strawberry plants I planted out last year have been thriving this spring/summer. We picked our first four yesterday, sweet, plump and juicy…or so I would imagine. The kidlets scoffed them within seconds!

I’m a lot of things, gamer included. One of my big passions is gaming, not just video games but also roleplaying games, both freeform and system. Recently I have been developing a character to try out Mouse Guard, a roleplaying game I’ve never played before but that intrigues me. The character creation was a lot of fun and as a result of spending time with my character I decided I wanted to draw him…or at least attempt to.

I knew I wanted to keep my sketch in keeping with the style of the comics and was really pleased with how my mouse, Baba, turned out.

Following my success I then turned my attention to one of the other player’s characters. This one was a little trickier as I had to try to portray him in the way the other person envisaged him.

I will be trying a couple more soon for the other characters in our group. I just thought I would share with you all some different kind of sketching from me since I usually work with more abstract art. I’ve never been that great at character sketching but I think a lot of that is down to the fact I haven’t really put in the time and effort to practice getting good at it. Drawing mice was something new for me and reminded me how much I enjoy character sketching to go alongside my character creation process.

My boyfriend told me that whenever he sees flowers he’s reminded of me. I asked him why and he told me he could just imagine me with my camera taking close ups of all the colour, abstract markings and beautiful forms I see in them. It’s true, I love the nature, flowers in particular and it has reminded me to work with them more, in both my photography and art.

It’s a matter of going back to the basics of where I started out, creating around the beauty I see and sharing it with others. I think it’s easy for me to lose sight of that when I am trying to create to sell, when really art that comes from the heart speaks to others more powerfully than what we sometimes think we should be creating.

The last couple of days have been both busy and stressful for me, I’ve not been sleeping well and I can’t seem to shake the uptight, stressful feeling that’s plaguing me. I’ve been taking the opportunity, however, to return to my cross stitching project as a means to unwind. I’ve now finished two of the nine ‘panels’ on the chart for this beautiful tiger cross stitch kit that I picked up a few years back after finishing a project I was stitching for someone else.

This one is for me and as such I have been procrastinating with it and putting it off. I seem to find things for others a lot easier to work on and find the time for, though I am really making an effort with this one as I want to finish him and hang him in my bedroom. Tiger has always been a symbol of protection and strength for me, I suppose right now that is what I feel I need which leads me to work on him.